New Licences for Petrol.
Page 1
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
We publish elsewhere (page 225) the official notice concerning the renewal of licences, at the hands of the Petrol Control Committee, for the six months beginning the 1st prox. The applications will be considered on and after the 16th inst., and the Committee is only prepared to grant an increase not exceeding 10 per cent. of the amount authorized in the existing licences, except in those cases where claims for supplementary allowances have been justified by the facts adduced in support. The latter are to remairl as now.
The decision of the Committee appears to 'us to be irreconcilable with the amount of petrol in the country, the supplies coming forward, and the fact that many private-car owners will not require as much spirit during the winter as is offered to them, unless upon one hypothesis alone—the possible danger of the new U-boat campaign. The claims of coal-gas thus get unanticipated encouragement.
Definition of Motor Spirit.
We are able to publish (next page) the full text of the case which has been stated by the Conway magistrates in the appeal by the Llandudno Motor and Garage Co., Ltd., against the convictions which were reported in our issue of the 14th September last, and upon the facts of which convictions we commented at length in our issue of the 21st idem. Whilst we are entitled, we find, to publish the text of the stated case, we are not at liberty to comment upon it. We must, therefore, be content to leave matters where they are, until the appeal has been heard in the Court of King's Bench. We trust that there will be not much further delay before the situation is cleared. Owners and users of motor chars-a,-bancs may be interested to know that the Commercial Motor Users Association is drawing up a petition, addressed to the Petrol Control Committee of the Board of Trade in order to secure the early cancellation of the Order of the 18th August last, for which order it has at last been admitted that the Petrol Control Committee was actually responsible. Every char-h-bancs owner should apply for copies, and obtain signatures. Whatever may be the result of the appeal from the decision of the Conway magistrates, larger issues lie in front of those who have invested capital in motor ahars-h-bancs, and who, by the provision of cheap travelling facilities, enable many relatively-poor men and women to enjoy the benefits of motoring.
The Peak Load by Motorbus : Fallacious Assumptions.
' We recently had an opportunity, in the course of a discussion upon the possibilities of dealing with the peak loads of a complete passenger-traffic system in a large city, to hear the Views of a prominent electrictramway manager in this country. We are not at liberty to make use of his name as he apparently does not wish---in any case at the present juncture of events—to enter into a public controversy with us. There is none the less, no reason why the points
which he sought to make should not be examined. They are, put briefly, that four times as many motorbuses are needed as tramcars, for the peak load of any considerable passenger-traffic system, by reason of the fact that motorbuses can only accommodate 16 passengers inside. This is, truly, an astounding line of argument. We ask our electric-tramcar friends, who may be willing to proceed along the same hypothetical line of argument, the following questions :— 1. Why assume that the present seating capacity will be the limit in the future, in London, any more .than it is the limit now in the Provinces ?
2. Why assume that the outside seats of a motor omnibus will never be protected against the weather 3. Why assume that the point-to-point traffic capacity varies directly as the seats provided, thus ignoring the overtaking facilities which attach to vehicles which are not ra,ilbound?
4. Why take a traffic density which does not apply, in a large number of towns in the United Kingdom?
Why is it that our tramcar friends will not abandon fallacies such as those which are indicated above ? There is no sound reason for accepting the contentions of tramcar advocates, that a motorbus is unable, either financially or physically, to cope with the peak load on a city scale. There are, further, plenty of single-deck motorbuses which are capable of seating more people inside than do the small-size London motorbuses both inside and out.
Any city or town which is not already committed to an electric-tramcar undertaking, or which has not one in existence, can save anything between 50 per cent. and 70 per cent. of the capital expenditure which a tramway undertaking involves, and possess itself of an elastic and profit-earning motorbus system. The stagnation in electric-tramway development, which had already become apparent before the war broke out, is the best proof of ou'r assertion that the motorbus is challenging it effectively, The fact that a. traffic density on many London thoroughfares, amounting to between 6000 and _7000 passenger-seats hourly, in each direction, was successfully maintained before the war, without congestion and with a sufficient headway between the motorbuses, should totally confute the inaccurate inferences which have been indicated. There are many towns and cities in the country where such a peak-load demand fails to occur, and where 4000 seats per hour are enotigh. The councillors in any city or town which is not already congested by an inelastic electric-tramcar system will certainly do well to ponder the fact that in London, with hundreds of other units of 'traffic on the highways at the same time, the flexible motorbils can deal effectively with traffic of -6000-7000 seats per hour each way, and do it for many hours in succession. We repeat that the peak-load problem for the motorbus is nothing more than one ef comparativelysmall extra expenditure on rolling-stock, and of a readily-modified organization of personnel.